A super PAC for journalists?
Aligning with a political committee: most news reporters consider it a cardinal sin.
But dogma isn't dogging Michael J. Hollis, a freelance writer and adjunct journalism professor from Texas who on Wednesday registered a federal super PAC aimed at representing the interests of work-a-day scribes, particularly contract writers.
Struggling journalists, he said, shouldn't fear prodding politicians to heed their economic concerns.
"If we allow real journalism to get devalued though and allow journalists to simply become 'content providers,' we are participating in the death of our own industry," said Hollis, who most recently taught courses at Park University and Concordia University Texas. "There are quite a few changes going on in the industry that are concerning to me but I think we can overcome them so long as we don’t ignore them."
Simply forming a super PAC, which by definition may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for or against politicians, guarantees nothing.
Most of the nearly 1,000 federally registered super PACs in existence have raised little or no cash, according to Federal Election Commission records. Multimillion-dollar operations such as conservative American Crossroads or liberal Senate Majority PAC are rare.
Hollis said he wants to use the super PAC to advocate for issues and also plans to try to attract small-time entrepreneurs and non-journalist freelancers to his causes.
He will assuredly face fiscal challenges. Few working journalists ever contribute to political campaigns and committees — although there are exceptions. And freelancers, his target demographic, aren't typically flush with surplus cash.
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Primary Source. Primary Source keeps you up-to-date on developments in the post-Citizens United world of money in politics. Click here to read more stories in this blog.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
